Photography We’re Thankful For

Since Thanksgiving is a time for reflection and appreciating what one has, we're taking a look back at the last year and choosing 10 of the photo projects we've written about that, in our opinion, make the world a better place. Photography is a powerful tool and these people wield it for the forces of good. Enjoy.

Above:

Thankful for Good Journalism in Mexico

In his project La Ley del Monte, photographer Mauricio Palos enriches our understanding of the Mexican drug war. Most coverage from south of the border concentrates on dead bodies, but he shows us there are important stories about politics, history, economics and immigration that must be considered if we’re to fully understand a conflict that has left more than 60,000 people dead.

“Mexico is a multifaceted country and it’s impossible to see this story from only what’s going on in the streets,” he says.

Palos has spent years on this project and still isn’t done. We appreciate that he’s put himself in the middle of a messy and dangerous story to help us understand it more fully. His journalism is the type we need more of, both in Mexico and around the world. Complext but important stories are too often boiled down or oversimplified. -- Jakob Schiller

Photo: Tens of thousands of young people from the #yosoy132 movement and other civil society organizations marched in Mexico City to protest what they consider a "large number of anomalies, electoral crimes and violent acts" one day after the general elections for president. In the image, youth express their dissatisfaction with the PRI's national executive committee. Mexico City. July 2, 2012. By Mauricio Palos.

Thankful This Isn't Our Last Meal

As we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, many of us will be thankful we're surrounded by family and good food. It won’t cross most people’s minds, but some of us here at Raw File will be thankful that the meal won’t be our last.

In a powerful project called No Seconds, photographer Henry Hargreaves shot a series of 10 photographs recreating the last meals requested by condemned prisoners in the United States. He couldn’t get into the prisons to actually shoot the meals, and no other photos existed, so he researched the requests online had a friend help him cook and plate the food.

Hargreaves says he was drawn to the contrast of offering someone a slice of comfort before they’re killed, and he hopes the photos make people reflect on capital punishment.

“Anywhere else in the developed world, the death penalty is just not even in the conversation,” he says. -- Jakob Schiller

Photo: Henry Hargreaves

Thankful for Better Stock Photography

After I wrote about Gettycritics.com, a website that makes fun of bad stock photography, several stock agencies contacted me to prove not all stock photography sucks.

At first I didn’t take them seriously. All I knew about stock photography was what I had seen, and it was bad. But after a flurry of emails, stock agencies like Death to the Stock Photo and Offset convinced me to take a look at their archives. I was immediately impressed.

Death to the Stock Photograph isn’t a typical stock agency. Instead of selling pictures from their website, they shoot a set of pictures under a theme like “Coffee Shop” and send them out for free to the thousands of subscribers on their email list. The founders have a keen eye for modern visual tastes and I like that they’re willing to re-think the stock model. They’re going to have to start charging for the work eventually, but for now they're just trying to bring up the quality of the industry.

Offset, which is owned by the more mainstream stock agency Shutterstock, is changing the game by mining the archives of high-end assignment photographers, as well as other photo agencies and publications, to create a smaller boutique stock company where the level of photography is definitely a step above. Thanks to their team of experienced editors, the site is well curated and easy to use.

In the photo world we often refer to something called visual literacy, or the ability to use photography as a powerful communication tool. Stock agencies like these are contributing to the level of visual literacy in the stock world and I hope others take note. -- Jakob Schiller

Photo: WaterHouse Marine Images

Thankful for 4K Ski Video Goodness

Skiing has come a long way and so have ski films. Gone are the cheesy days of the 1980s with too many people in neon colors. Filmmakers are traveling all over the world capturing incredibly rich, and harrowing, footage of talented athletes pushing the limits of the sport.

As a way to move the genre even further forward, Teton Gravity Research, a production company with several well-known ski and snowboard films under its belt, recently invested in a $750,000, helicopter-mounted, 4K, gyro-stabilized camera platform that works with cameras like the RED Epic. They used the new rig to shoot their most recent film Way of Life, and while you can’t really the full benefit without a 4K screen, you can enjoy the smooth as silk helicopter footage that the rig allowed them to shoot on whatever screen you have.

I’m not thankful for 4K ski video in the same way I’m thankful for the more serious projects mentioned here. But while I'm hitting the slopes this holiday weekend I'm comforted to know I can always revisit that visceral feeling because of ski film innovators like TGR. -- Jakob SchillerPhoto: Teton Gravity Research filming skiers in the Neacola Mountains in Alaska with the GSS C520. Photo: Courtesy of TGR.

When 19 members of the Granite Mountain crew died in a tragic accident this summer and those frames took on a whole new meaning. I was among the few photojournalists who had pictures of these guys in the field, and those photos became important remembrances. I probably spent six hours with the crew and I only met five of the members who died. But I’m thankful I got to know them briefly, and I’m even more thankful I have photos that show the incredibly hard and important work they did to protect the forest and those who live in and around it. -- Jakob Schiller

Photo: Christopher MacKenzie, right, and other members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew from Prescott, Arizona scout a piece of terrain before starting a burnout operation that was meant to help contain the Whitewater-Baldy fire on May 31, 2012. MacKenzie and 18 other members of the Granite Mountain crew died in the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona in late June. By Jakob Schiller.

Thankful for the Day Off

If you’re lucky, you’re in a job you love. If you’re like most people, however, it's a grind.

Louis Quail’s Desk Jobs reminds us why we’re all thankful to get away from our workstations for a couple of days. Spare a thought for those among us (i.e. service industry workers) who don’t get to sit down with their friends and family for Thanksgiving. -- Pete Brook

Photo: Louis Quail. ‘IT Worker, online share brokers, Leeds 2007.’

Thankful for News Professionals

Photojournalism informs humans on one side of the world about the fates of those on the other. Commerce, the Internet and climate change are all ways in which — for better or for worse — we are connected. As citizens of the same global village we need to know how our neighbors are doing. In the face of a photo news industry in flux, let’s be thankful for photographers’ passion for truthful visual reporting that remains undiminished.

Moises Saman is only one shooter of thousands holding a mirror to our uncertain world, but his interview with us sticks with us to this day.

On the topic of media, we’re thankful for every town, state and nation the world over in which press freedom is protected by law and upheld by the powers that be. -- Pete Brook

Photo: A nurse and her patient inside a Muslim Brotherhood operated hospital in the Shobra district of Cairo, Egypt. January 2012. Photo: Moises Saman/MAGNUM

Thankful for Family

Okay, so family can drive us mad, but at least we have the option to sit down for a meal with them. There are 2.3 million incarcerated men, women and children in America who won’t be joining their families this holiday.

We’re thankful for Emdur’s project Prison Landscapes because it shows us the use and preciousness of photography in hidden institutions. No cellphone took these pictures; the one-off portraits made on a prison camera (Polaroid or digital) are unique. -- Pete Brook

Thankful We Use Photos for Fun and It Doesn’t Use Us

As news about the NSA surveillance program continues to dominate headlines, it's hard to put a firm definition on Americans’ freedom. Photography is heralded as the democratic medium, which is strange because frequently throughout history it has been used for distinctly anti-democratic means.

Simon Menner’s Top Secret takes us inside the threatening and sometimes absurd archive of photographs collected by the Stasi, the East German secret police. During the Communist era, East Germany employed 300,000 spies to observe its own citizens.

“We rarely get to see what Big Brother sees,” says Simon Menner about his curation of the banal and evil images.

There’s a fine line between photography and surveillance. We are not trailed by false-mustachioed spies when we run out to grab some milk in the morning … yet. So let’s be thankful to Menner for reminding us that our 21st-century #firstworldproblems pale in comparison to the suspicion and persecution of people in very recent history. -- Pete Brook

Photo: Agent being awarded for an unknown deed. From the book ‘Top Secret: Images from the Stasi Archives.’ Courtesy of Simon Menner.

Thankful for Community

Family is community and community is family. How well do you know your neighbors? We love Dave Jordano’s portrait of Detroit because it is an endearing and enduring of the people making community in a city that is often maligned in the media.

If one of photography’s goals is to connect people then this is your prime example. -- Pete Brook